Building Consent

Before work can start it's necessary to get a building consent from your local council.  If you are in a hurry to get work underway you may want to lodge your application as soon as your working drawings are finalised, while you are still finalising the building contract.

Building Consent application forms must be filled in and lodged with your plans. A fee is payable based on the value of the work. It takes 10 working days for projects under $500,000 and 20 working days for larger projects.

Don't even think about starting work without a consent – even for small renovations.   Even if you get away with it in the short term there will be major problems for you further down the track when you want to sell your house.

Under the New Zealand Building Code the building owner is responsible for obtaining the building consent and for obtaining a certificate of Code Compliance when the work is completed.  Owners who are building also have a clear obligation to subsequent owners to comply with the New Zealand Building Code. 

Most owners do not have access to the relevant Building Code information, which is large, spread throughout many different published documents and expensive.  For these reasons the Government is intending introduce licensing even for owners building their own homes.  The current proposal yet to be agreed by parliament is that all new homes will need to be constructed by or under the supervision of a licensed building practitioner.

If you are building or intending to build it is recommended that if you are not familiar with the detailed Building Code requirements you employ the services of an established expert to ensure all work is Code compliant throughout the construction process.

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